Stonecrest
Catastrophic Injury Lawyer

Stonecrest is still a new city with plenty of opportunities on its horizon. However, even the residents of new cities face risks, including the risk of incurring a catastrophic injury as a result of a car accident, fall, or another type of incident.

If you or your loved one have suffered a catastrophic injury as a result of someone else’s negligence, let a Stonecrest personal injury lawyer from John Foy & Associates help you understand the process of pursuing compensation for your injury.

The Lifelong Impacts of a Catastrophic Injury

The term catastrophic injury generally refers to injuries that produce a high likelihood of permanent disabilities that will impact the sufferer’s future ability to earn an income. The most common types of injuries to be referred to as catastrophic involve the organs that make up the body’s central nervous system: the brain and the spinal cord.

In spite of being tasked with controlling most of the body’s functions, the brain and the spinal cord only have very limited abilities to recover from injury.

While the American Medical Association only considers conditions affecting the brain, spine, or spinal cord as catastrophic, other types of injuries that can also be considered catastrophic due to their impact on the sufferer’s ability to earn an income include limb amputations, or the loss of one of the body’s primary senses, such as hearing or eyesight.

Valuing a Catastrophic Injury Claim

As reported by Northwestern University, the lifetime costs of traumatic brain injuries can be up to $3 million while creating deficits that result in an unemployment rate of 60 percent for adult sufferers two years after the onset of the injury. The Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation reports that a 25-year-old suffering high tetraplegia from a spinal cord injury can expect lifetime costs of about $4.7 million while experiencing a permanent loss of sensation and function from the neck down.

While all injuries are expensive, catastrophic injuries result in expenses and impacts that will continue to be incurred throughout the sufferer’s life.

One of the many services an experienced catastrophic injury lawyer in Stonecrest will provide is the valuation of your claim, which is how much the claim is worth when considering past and future medical expenses, wage loss, loss of earning capacity, and physical or emotional pain and suffering. Because catastrophic injuries are lifelong and result in profound impacts, they are often valued higher than other types of claims.

The Process of Obtaining Compensation After a Stonecrest Catastrophic Injury

The legal process of obtaining compensation for catastrophic injuries that were incurred as a result of someone else’s carelessness or recklessness is known as the personal injury claims process. Personal injury claims generally begin with a demand to the at-fault party’s insurance provider.

This demand is made via your attorney and includes details about the claim, as well as documentation of expenses and a request for payment of the claim’s value.

If the insurance provider pays the claim, the case is resolved. If they deny the claim, they must notify the claimant, at which point a personal injury lawsuit will likely be filed in order to seek payment of the claim through the courts. The insurance provider can also offer a settlement, and the attorney will often enter into negotiations with the provider in an attempt to obtain an offer that fairly compensates their client.

If a fair settlement offer is not made, the claimant and their attorney must file it as a personal injury lawsuit within two years of the date on which the injury was incurred.

Proving Liability

The cornerstone of a successful catastrophic injury claim is the ability of the claimant and their catastrophic injury attorney in Stonecrest to prove that someone else was liable for causing the injury. Negligence is the most common cause of catastrophic injuries, and is proven by showing these elements of the claim:

• The defendant had a duty to take reasonable actions in a given set of circumstances to protect the safety and property of others in the area.
• The defendant breached this duty by taking unsafe or unreasonable actions.
• The breach caused an accident in which the claimant suffered catastrophic injuries, which led to associated expenses and psychological impacts.

Compensation

In Georgia, individuals who have been catastrophically injured as the result of someone else’s negligence can seek to recover both economic and non-economic damages. In laymen’s terms: claimants can seek to obtain compensation for both the expenses and impacts of their injury. Common types of expenses and impacts that appear in Stonecrest catastrophic injury damage claims include:

• Past and future medical expenses, including the costs of treating complications and the provision of long-term care.
• The loss of future earning capacity as a result of the permanent disabilities acquired from the injury.
• The psychological impacts of having a permanent disability, including physical and emotional pain and suffering.
• The cost of hiring someone to perform household tasks that the claimant can no longer handle independently.

Affording a Stonecrest Catastrophic Injury Attorney

Many people – including those who have become permanently disabled as a result of a catastrophic injury – avoid hiring an attorney to assist them with their claim because they are afraid that they can’t afford one.

However, it is worth noting that anyone who needs the assistance of a personal injury lawyer is able to afford it, thanks to the contingent fee billing method that most attorneys who assist clients in obtaining compensation for injuries use.

The contingent fee billing method allows the claimant to withhold payment for their lawyer’s services until there is a successful outcome in the cases. 

Our Experienced Stonecrest Catastrophic Injury Lawyer Can Help

If you have suffered a catastrophic injury, a Stonecrest catastrophic injury lawyer from John Foy & Associates can help you understand the personal injury process and the services our firm can provide to assist you. For your free case evaluation, contact us.